26 course, had not been at the wedding), Edna had called them one Saturday when the baby was three months old, and talked with Will She invited him to come with the baby and Martha to dinner the next night, and Will had said Yes and hung up, his hand shaking. "Why did you say Yes? " Martha had asked him. "How can we go? What do they want to do to us now? " "1 think they want to apologize," V\Till had said. His parents had been terribly polite, all right, and they had nearly stood on their heads for the baby's pleasure, and they had served a good dinner-and all the while Martha's teeth were chatter- ing, her hands like ice, and Will was stiff-backed and tense-but there had been no word of apology. rrhey had act- ed as though there couldn't have been anything to apologize for. They were just warmhearted regular old grand- parents. When Edna had called the next week and invited them to dinner agaIn, be- cause no one spoke out the truth the first time, there seemed no reason to say No the second time, and, strangely and easIly, they had fallen into this pattern of coming to Sunday dinner. Martha began to accept it as part of her life. A sense of continuity grew out of the visits-taking the baby to her grand- parents', being served an elaborate din- ner, watching television. She and "'Till found themselves going without discuss- Ing It. So here they were, with Ed Sullivan bowing out for the last commercial. Her father-in-law went forward and switched off the set. "So, vVill?" he said. "What did you think of the Giants win- ning? " Reluctantly, Will put down the pa- pers and showed his face. "I don't care one way or another," he said. "So what have you been doing on your days off ? Taking the baby to the zoo?" "She's too young." "So what do you do? " "We mostly stay home." "Will's building a record cabinet," Martha volunteered, which was strange, since she usually let the old man founder till he realized that conversation was impossible. "Is that so? Is that so?" he said. "Tel] me about it, Will." "Nothing to tell. I'm just building it. " "Oh, Harry," Martha said. "Will needs a large screwdriver-. You wouldn't happen to have one, would you? " "Sure, sure I do," Harry said, de- lIghted to be of some use. "I'll find It SCENE OF A SUMMER. MOR.NING Scene of a summer morning: my mother walking To the butcher's, I led along. Mountains Of feathers. My breath storms them. Angry feathers. Handfuls. The warm gut windings stinking. Here, chickens! Yankel, the bloody storeman- Daringly he takes the live anin1als In vain. Yankel, a life for a life! Eternal Morning too young to go to school. I get A hollow horn to keep. Feathers, COme down! Gone. The world of onE: morning. But somewhere, Sparkling, it circles a sunny point. Incredible the ma7es of that morning, Where my life in all the passages at once Is flowing, coursing, as in a body That walked away, went. Who \vrites these lines I no longer know, but I believe him To be a coward, the only one who escaped. The best and bravest are back there still, All my Ten Tribes wandering and singing In the luminous streets of the morning. U nsounded the horn' And silence shudders In the center of the sunnv point, Heartstopping at dawn. Enormous my thieving hand in the ancient sunlight No longer mine. Littering through my fingers, Drifting, the Ten Tribes there, lost forever. -IRVING FELDMAN . . for you right now. Why didn't you ask sooner? I could have driven over with it." He got up and went into the kitchen "It's not important," Will called after him. "I can get one at W 001- worth's." "Not at all, not at all," Harry an- swered, rattling things in a cabinet. "I know it's here somewhere," he said, his voice muffled. WilJ picked up the papers again It was very quiet without the television. The sound of a running shower could be heard above the thumps of Harry's pulling everything out of the kitchen drawers. The baby sat on the rug, roll- ing an apple against one chubby thigh and back against the other. Martha went over to her husband on the couch \ and said, "Let him find the screwdriver. Borrow it from hIm. Thank hIm, for heaven's sake, Will. Let him do some- thing for us." Will looked up at her, and then moved forward and rubbed his head in a kInd of anguish against her stomach. "Oh, Martha," he whIspered. "I'm sorry for all thIS mess." She felt him lean back quickly at a sound from the bathroom and to hide her own confusion she began to dIaper the baby, holding the pins in her mouth and keeping her head bent. By the time the bathroom door opened and her mother-in-law came out, her wet hair slicked against her skull, Martha was sitting on the floor, holding the baby against her chest like a shield. Her mother-in-law, with her makeup washed off, and wearing only a robe without her many supporting gar- ments, looked loose and old, worn and tired. "I think we'll have to go soon," Martha said. "It's way past the baby's bedtime. She's going to get cranky any . " mInute. "Oh, don't go yet," Edna said. "I'll _ make some coffee. Stay awhile." "Haven't we made enough of a mess for you for one evening?" Martha said with a laugh, indicating the apples on the floor, the crumbs from the baby's zwie- back, the chocolatey fingerprints on the